Buds need to bulk up, says Burke

Michael Traikos, Canwest News Service12.06.2008

Tomas Kaberle, centre, who was benched for the entire first period in a 6-3 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes on Thursday, has no points and is a minus-4 since Burke arrived. But the puck-moving defenceman may be Toronto’s most talented player.

Luke Schenn is a “building block.” Mikhail Grabovski is a “skilled forward.” And the Toronto Maple Leafs “need to get bigger right away.”

Those are some of the observations Brian Burke made during his first week as the team’s general manager.

The 53-year-old is the first to admit that his assessment is premature. Saturday night’s game at Air Canada Centre against the Washington Capitals will be his fifth. But after watching the team go 2-2, there are already things that he likes and dislikes with the team.

“When I start with a team in training camp, the 20-game mark is when I make my first assessment.” he said. “So I’m still learning on the fly here.”

Though there is a lot Burke has gleaned in seven days on the job, a four-game look can also be somewhat misleading.

Tomas Kaberle, who was benched for the entire first period in a 6-3 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes on Thursday, has no points and is a minus-4 since Burke arrived. But the puck-moving defenceman may be Toronto’s most talented player.

“Kaberle is a good player,” said Burke. “Whether the cupboard is bare or not, I’m not going to offer an assessment like that until I get farther along.”

It is unlikely that Burke, who has set a personal trading freeze from Dec. 9 to Jan. 1, will make any immediate personnel changes in the next three days.

Instead, he plans on using this time to determine which players will fill roles on the team he is building. Burke said he is looking for skill for his top-six forwards and size for his bottom-six forwards.

“To me, it’s like a symphony orchestra,” he said. “You got a first (chair) file in, and she’s usually elegant, and there’s a spotlight on her and she’s the last one to sit down. But there’s a guy built like me in the back row blowing on a tuba. They don’t start the show until we’re both sitting down.”

So far, the Leafs’ ensemble appears to be a few performers short.

Forward Matt Stajan, who is the team’s top scorer with 21 points in 25 games, was tied for 45th in the league prior to Friday night’s games. And the team has 12 players who weigh less than 200 pounds.

“With the way I like my teams to play, we need to get bigger right away,” Burke said. “It’s not that we don’t compete, but we don’t always win the battles . . . If you’ve got a guy battling for the puck and he’s outweighed by 30 or 40 pounds, he’s going to lose that battle more than he wins that.

“So that’s one thing we’ve got to change. But I don’t know how we’re going to change it.”

Indeed, changing the makeup of a team cannot be done overnight.

Burke’s predecessor, Cliff Fletcher, had deals in place to move Mats Sundin, Pavel Kubina and Kaberle at last season’s trade deadline. But all three players refused to waive no-trade clauses in their contracts.

A bigger challenge will be trying to persuade a team to take on some of Toronto’s more unattractive contracts.

“When you’re talking about trading and upgrading your team, it’s not that easy in a cap system,” Burke said. “So that’s why I’m not making any bold promises or setting any time frame, because I’m not sure how quickly I’ll be able to accomplish some of these things.”

Burke has been pushing the league to allow teams to retain some of the salary of a traded player. But the belief is that richer teams might receive an unfair advantage, because they would be able to have more unused money on the payroll.

Burke’s solution is to cap the amount retained in a single trade at $2 million US, as well as allowing teams to have less than $4 million in “dead money” per season.

“In my mind that would keep it from being an advantage for big-market teams,” he said. “Mind you, I was pushing for this when I was in Anaheim. This isn’t something I started to espouse now that I’m with a big-market team.”

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